


The Telegram

by Medea87



Category: Home Fires (UK TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Minor Character Death, My First Fanfic, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medea87/pseuds/Medea87
Summary: A window into what Sarah is thinking during season 2 episode 1, with an alternate ending.
Relationships: Adam Collingborne/Sarah Collingborne
Kudos: 1





	The Telegram

The WI and the village, they all try to do their bit to help the Czech soldiers. It isn’t much but Sarah knows that not only is it expected of her as the vicar’s wife, but its something she wants to do herself. With Adam away there is so little for her to do now, without needing to fulfil the role of 'The Vicar’s Wife'. She remembers how her love came back from WWI, and if she can ease these men – boys really – journey and provide them some comfort while they are here in Great Paxford she will.

When Frances reminds her that the Czechs have "fought their way out of Czechoslovakia and halfway across Europe" she doesn’t want to be reminded. This could be their men soon enough; this could be Adam. A man too old for the war, but he’d gone anyway. It’s no consolation that Churchill committed to getting the Czechs out. Who will get their men out if Britain falls, who will get them all out of this?

Frances won’t be talked into speaking at the thanksgiving service but then Frances will rarely be talked into anything. Sarah should know this by now and she does, but sometimes Frances’ desire to be in charge means that she will acquiesce to Sarah’s wishes even when she knows Sarah is trying to talk her into something. She knows she is expected to talk at the service but, how can she? Really? What can she say to the village? It would be hypocritical of her to talk about a God she scarcely believes in, and she’d never wanted Adam to go in the first place so how can she talk of how great it is to serve one’s country, especially when she can never know. 

All she’s seen of war is the return of broken men with broken minds and bodies and those empty spaces on church pews and in family pictures on mantel pieces that will never be filled again. She’s never been the one that has been good with soothing and guiding people emotionally that has always been Adam, and she has never been a commanding presence the way Frances is. And yet it is her that is expected to speak to and uplift the hearts and minds of the parish. She isn’t this person. Always the supporter and helpmeet, friend and guide; never the one at the front leading the charge. 

It’s not just Adam; Bob’s away and Stan’s away and David’s missing and so many others are gone. With Bryn, Will, Spencer and enough of the other men still around it seems easier to think of the others as just away, ‘away’, like Peter is at his factories in Liverpool. When she’s by herself she can imagine that Adam is just off visiting a parishioner, or he’s gone to a synod for the week. But he isn’t and he hasn’t. And the other men aren’t just away either; Bob’s not chasing up a story in Liverpool, Stan’s not off to the county show, David hasn’t gone camping with his old friends from school. There is a hole at the centre of her life and at the centre of the community. What Sarah feels for Adam is private and precious and while she understands it, she resents that Adam can never just be her husband, but always the parish’s vicar.

Sarah’s not spent more than a week away from Adam since he came back from the war, the last war and it’s hard without him. She feels bad, and weak, and stupid and needy for that. Of course it’s hard! It’s hard for everyone. But, when she reaches out across the bed in the morning, she can just feel the cold pillow beside her where his head should be, he’s not there to hold her hand as they walk together, he’s not there to sit in easy companionship with as they sip their tea in the garden after a long day. She misses his quiet, calming presence, his sense of humour, and his counsel; she misses the feel of him beside her, his warm kisses and gentle touch. His compassion in shared sorrow, how quick he can bring her to anger and then make her laugh; she misses her partner in life and everything. She misses everything about him really. Keeping busy distracts her for a while but ultimately when she returns home at the end of the day it’s to a cold house and a cold bed. 

When she sees Nick has returned, she feels a flutter in her heart and a joy she hasn’t felt for days. Then feels guilty for it. While he could never replace Adam, his presence in the house had given her a shape to her days and companion to talk to, a sounding board who while on duty was committed to his job, but when the day was over, he wasn’t a public presence in the way Adam was. He was young and handsome, a talented and dashing pilot and despite being a married woman she couldn’t begrudge her heart giving a little flutter over such a handsome gentleman, any woman’s would. And any of our boy’s safe and home from the fight was a good thing. But it was the other things that bothered her, the thing’s she knows she shouldn’t have enjoyed, the ugly lamp he’d bought, the candlelit meals he’d made for just the two of them, their talks in the garden, the way his eyes appraised her body in a way that no man, but Adam had looked at her in a very long-time. The way he hadn’t replaced Adam but filled spaces in her life that she hadn’t recognised were empty.

She keeps a distance between them that she knows he feels too, it feels safer. This is a small village, and she is married, any gossip about the vicar’s wife and the wing commander could ruin her, especially if there was some truth to the gossip even if neither of them has acted on the sentiment between them. Nick asks about Adam and if she’s heard from him and she wonders why he asks, because he feels he should? To put emotional distance between them? Because he too feels guilty about this something between them and he feels he should acknowledge her husband? She doesn’t know, she just feels the crushing guilt of this spark of connection with someone other than Adam.

Adam is nearly always in her thoughts, the only time he isn’t is when she is working or enjoying the company of others, like Nick. Nick tries to comfort her, but his gaze holds both the desire to comfort her and the air of something more. She wishes she didn’t feel this way and she wishes Adam was with her, because she knows if he were, she would never have these feelings. Sarah feels bad for that, even more so, Adam is off fighting for his country, ministering souls and she wants him back in part so that she does not feel the temptation of another. 

She tries to make the situation casual by asking Nick for dinner, like a landlady welcoming back a much-liked tenant. But, that’s only part of the story, she’s doing that because that’s what’s normal, that’s what’s to be expected, that’s what she would do if she felt nothing for him. If she acts that way maybe it will be true and she will stop feeling this frisson of attraction between them and stop feeling this guilt for caring for another when her husband is the best of men, doing his duty while she safe at home is feeling this connection to another. Nick is here and Adam is not, and she is tearing herself up inside.

Almost as if a punishment for her thoughts she sees the motorcycle outside her house, and then the telegram boy return from the door to his bike. She steps slowly towards him hoping he is not here for her, but she knows he must be which is only confirmed when he asks her name. Is this angel of death here for Adam, or has she been lucky, and their house has been passed over? Without even thinking she automatically thanks the telegraph boy, her chest pounding and her mouth dry as she opens the telegram. Her heart almost stops beating. 

Mrs Sarah Collingborne. Deeply regret to inform you that the Reverend Adam Collingborne CF was killed in action May 27th. The Army Council express their sympathy. 

All she can think of is that she will never see him again and the crushing weight of her guilt. No more quiet moments waking with his lips against her neck, no more sitting beside him sewing as he writes his sermons, no more dances together at the village fete and laughing at the latest antics of the matrons trying to battle for his attention. She has no reply for the telegraph boy, she has nothing anymore.

Sarah tells Frances. She always tells Frances everything. Her husband is dead. That’s all she can think of. She does not know when she will get his body back, or even if she will get his body back. It should rest in the quiet churchyard of the church and village he loved so much, in the centre of his community in death as in life. It should not be lying, rotting in foreign soil. 

He was twice the age of the men he was fighting with, he should never have been there, and now he will never truly come home. He will be another missing face in their community, who’s replacement in their church will now be permanent and who’s picture will fade in her sitting room. They’d never really wanted children, he was devoted to his flock and she’d never felt the desire the way Frances had, but now she wishes she had some small piece of him to hold onto, a son with the shape of his brow or a daughter with that same fine hair, but now she was left without a single piece of him. 

Frances and Peter try to comfort her, but in the end they want her to tell the village of his death. His life was public and for the village, why can’t his death at least for a while be hers and hers alone to hold on to. He might have been Great Paxford’s vicar, but he was her husband first. She doesn’t want pitiful looks or consoling gestures, she wants Adam, and if she can’t have Adam, she wants the solitude to hold her grief to herself, like a wounded animal that knows it’s going to die her grief is her own and no one else’s. She will not be subject to their prurient gaze.

While Frances tells her to do what she thinks best, Sarah knows Frances means what you ‘know’ to be right, not what you ‘feel’ to be right. At least she has the news she tries to console herself, she knows others will go weeks, months, years even with the idea that their loved one is missing in action only to learn that they have been dead the whole time. At least she doesn’t have to worry anymore, the worst has already happened.

Once she leaves Frances’ she walks for a while, then sits in her garden, "their little piece of paradise". She knows she is expected at the church, but she doesn’t know what she wants to say or even can say. Before she can stop herself, she leaves the house, without her bag, her keys or coat, without anything; whatever comes out will have to be enough.

Sarah hears the final refrain, of ‘To be a pilgrim’ from the organ as she enters the church and for a moment the thought enters her head that in the end Adam’s foes managed to stay his might. As she walks down the nave, she sees Frances and then everyone else turn to look at her. She knows that they must know something is wrong. She’s not her normally put together self. She takes a moment to admire the beauty of the flowers, the rood screen she’d spent more hours polishing then she’d like, and the stained-glass windows Adam had always loved and takes a moment to internally say goodbye to it all, to this church, to this way of life, to being Adam’s wife and turns to face everyone, Adam’s flock no longer.

She finds it hard to find the words and can feel the expectant weight in the air waiting for her to speak. She tries to pretend everything is ok, Adam is just absent; despite what Frances has said the community don’t need to know, not yet. She starts similarly to how she has many times before when Adam has been late, and she has had to excuse his absence and start meetings or events without him, but she wants to say what Adam would say to his parishioners now. So she must tell them the truth, his truth.

Sarah starts to ramble, feels a lump in her throat and can only look to Frances for emotional support. Often pig-headed and stubborn but always loving Frances can only offer her a smile. She can’t breakdown now, this is for Adam. She tries to be formal stating, "Reverend Collingborne", for a moment she slips and states "my husband" because this is her husband and the only way she can think of him is as the man she loves, loved, not the Vicar his parishioners admired. 

Trembling voiced Sarah tells them her husband has been killed in action, along with several soldiers of his regiment. She tries to hold onto her emotions, and retain a stiff upper lip, reproaching herself as she knows that she is in the same boat as several woman there in the church. The only way she can go on now is to try and tear away her thoughts from Adam and instead think of why they are here. When the church bells next ring it will be for invasion or victory and they all must fight. She feels the catch in her throat and hopes she did Adam proud but all she can do is sit as Frances holds her and feel the tears stream silently down her face. The din of the bells sound like an ending to her.

Claire and Spencer’s return from their wedding should have been a light moment but it just reminds her that Adam should have been the one to marry them. He was at the centre of everything in this parish, baptisms, weddings, and funerals; there is a hole in the heart of the community but that will be more easily fixed than the hole in her own heart. 

Spencer runs off to deal with the crash they here and this time it is Sarah to comfort Frances. Grief weighs them both down.


End file.
